Government Spending £372m on Anti-Obesity Strategy

Active Southampton Shows the Way

Olympic and Commonwealth medallists Peter Waterfield and Iwan Thomas are joined by BBC's Roger Johnson to promote today's launch of the city's initiative to get Southampton active.

On the same day the government announces plans for "anti-obesity" spending of £372 million,including £30m to be spent in creating several healthy towns.

Southampton could already be a healthy town, with all the clubs, sport, indoor and outdoor opportunities to be active there should be no excuses. Yet Active Southampton chair, Jayne Ludden, announces "45% of Southampton adults lead a sedentary lifestyle".

The government, in its latest strategy, is planning to use £75m for just advertising and awareness. Getting the message across to be active is clearly going to be the biggest challenge for the Active Southampton partnership too.

To address this the partnership has appointed ambassadors and also plans to be a one-stop-shop on where and how to be active. At the launch today, Young Ambassadors said the aim is to "inspire and engage both young and old to be more active".

Having met many focused and dedicated individuals from the launch event, I would say that the initiative has every chance of succeeding. As Southampton is the home town of Gamercize - providing the technology for fitness and motivation to all, from office workers to school children - we will be getting involved to help out too.

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Gamercize Goes to School

Children Vote for Exercise

Last week Derbyshire Sport invited us to a local school to find out a bit more about Gamercize.

Well over a hundred children had the chance to play on GameCubes and PlayStations linking through the GZ Sport to Power Steppers and Endurance Cycles.

After the kids had clocked up a combined 89 miles and over 200,000 steps, they were asked to vote if they thought Gamercize was Great :) , OK : or Rubbish :(

Even after the effort of exercising, 123 out of the 129 voted Gamercize "Great". 5 Said it was "OK" and just one didn't like it.

Some children preferred Mario Double Dash, some Mario Smash Football and some Lego Star Wars. The point being there was something for everyone. What is there to learn from this? If you want children to do extra exercise, make it fun, interesting and give them choice. 95% Of children can't be wrong; Gamercize is Great!

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BBC Gains Balance

Life Balance of Exercise and Eating

I criticised an anonymous article from the BBC earlier this month for being unbalanced and sensationalist. Now, I am very pleased to see the bias properly addressed.

Health reporter, Clare Murphy, has written a far better article, obviously from careful research and a clear understanding of issues surrounding obesity. Included are these centrepiece quotes which help outline the misconception that weight is linking only to what you eat:

But ironically, despite the fact that today's children no longer see crisps as a treat, the older generation probably consumed more fat.

The 1950s child also took more exercise, and the balance between food and energy expenditure is a key one.

So perhaps we can stop blaming food for lack of fitness and weight issues, and now look at both sides of the equation; Eating and exercise need to be balanced.

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Gamercize on the Dark Side

Forever burn your calories it will

Gamercize has been mentioned a little bit in on the web, in magazines and newspapers since the launch of the desk based GZ PC-Sport.

Reactions from customers are obviously the most important, after all it was listening to what our customers wanted that created the product.

It is nice to hear of the accolades given to the product. Making it into PC Magazine's "10 Great Gadgets to Stay Fit" made everyone here happy, as did getting into Bella magazine's Slim club with "What's Hot for 2008".

My personal favorite is the Most Evil Gadget award from the Globe and Mail, given out in their 2007 Office Awards. I hadn't been told about this until a couple of days ago here, so couldn't attend the award ceremony to pick up the silverware. I'm sure it's in the mail.

Although quite amusing to be branded evil, no one should really fear exercise in any form. Sorry if we scared anyone! Now, if only we could get Lord Vader for a product endorsement then our journey to the dark side would be complete...

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Lose 10lbs in Weight per Video Game Played

10lbs Weight Loss with Gamercize per 1,000 Gamerscore

What is your goal when you play video games? I have been aiming for an average of 10lbs per 1,000 gamerscore for a while and this week I have reached that level. For my 4,165 gamerscore on Xbox Live has I have lost a total of 42lbs in weight. As 1,000 gamerscore is the maximum per Xbox 360 game, that's over a 10lb average per game!

With the public release of the next generation Gamercize in the next few weeks there will never be a better excuse to jump in! I'm sure I could have got there with Gamercize on either a PlayStation 3 or a Wii, but I have only been given the pre-release GZ Pro-Sport for the 360. Ah well, not a bad perk of the job in any ones books and I'll sure to raid the warehouse for the PS3 and Wii versions next month!

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BBC Survey Misses the Mark

BBC Ignores Department of Health Advice.

The article on the BBC website today quite rightly points out obesity is on the rise across the world. BMI graphs from many countries has led the BBC to bend the question of obesity, leading with junk food as the cause. Some people see through the simplistic view in the BBC's fully moderated forum.

The BBC decides to take marketing research to promote an article that contains no story at all. It is a pity the publicly funded BBC does not spend these public monies on programming. Public money has already been spent on research that goes deeper into the issues. The advice from the Department of Health says calorific food intake has not increased in 30 years.

The expert health website goes on to say

Although the rise in obesity cannot be attributed to any single factor, it is the imbalance between energy in (through the food choices we make) and energy out (mainly through physical activity), which is the root cause.

Advancement in technology has given us all the excuse to get our entertainment without putting in physical effort. The freely available statistics from the USA show youth obesity follows video game play. Game time certainly eats into time previously spent outside being active, because it is more enjoyable, convenient and less effort.

So what has risen over the last 30 years? Obesity? - yes, eating more? - no, video game entertainment? - yes. Look at the evidence and do the math.

Despite been very disappointed by the BBC for missing an opportunity with the article, I am at least encouraged to see fitness technology showing the way forwards. Seeing Gamercize help show people that exercise can be fun is a real bonus. That is just the start, a more active outlook gives the motivation and ability to take up many more healthy past times.

Why the BBC cannot report on positive aspects of obesity is not surprising, bad news is more popular. Why the BBC cannot report bad news without sensationalist bias is very surprising.

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Automatic Web Page Translation

Let's go Global!

I love gadgets, especially ones that aim to cover 100% of the job in hand. The AddThis gadget is quite good for this, so next I am trying translation. New to my posts on this blog is the Google Translation gadget. I hope it allows many more people to read these posts.

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Top 5 Gym Survival Tips

Avoid Problems with January Gym Membership


January and February are typically the times of year that commercial gyms pick up the most number of new members. The post-holiday gym rush also represents the highest drop out rate.


For people who regularly visit a gym the next two months is a struggle. The gym is crowded, the machines you want to work on are all being used, and you long for April - when you have the gym all to yourself again. Take these five tips with you to make sure you do not end up wasting money or become demotivated.


Tip 1: Never pay a full years membership in advance. Many special offers or attractive deals are tempting you to commit to a monthly fee for a whole year. Most new members do not last past 90 days, and you may be one of them. If you are going to quit the gym, make sure your pocket book can quit too.


Tip 2: Choose a gym that is located closest to your most regularly travelled location. A gym near home is appealing, but when your are so close to home it is all to easy to just "skip the gym tonight". A better option is a gym closer to your place of work, so you can pop out at lunchtime, maybe hit the weights before work if the traffic has been kind.


Tip 3: Do not be put off by the crowds of people and the apparent poor ratio of physical instructors to members. In April the gym will be much quieter, the staff will have more time for you, and fitness machines will be more available. Even after the first couple of weeks you should notice the gym is quieter, so hang on in there!


Tip 4: Make sure you enlist the services of a personal trainer. Good quality gyms will provide excellent fitness instructors to help with the use of the equipment, but if you are looking for better fitness or weight loss you will need a personal trainer to put together a program for you. They will help you sustaining motivation to keep going before you start to see the weight dropping off.


Tip 5: Check the equipment and facilities the gym has to offer, look for sauna, squash courts or maybe a swimming pool. These extras help motivation as fitness equipment can be very boring, and now highly anti-social, as everyone plugs into iPods. Ultimate gyms, such as two in my home town, will have Gamercize Pod fitness machines similar to the picture. A quick game of the latest Playstation or Xbox title never gets old, and is an excellent way to socialise and get fit.

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Wii Players Need to Exercise

Wii Leads Sales but not Fitness

It comes as no surprise to us at Gamercize of the news today that the Wii is not the fitness breakthrough it has been portrayed as. To be fair, it is not the Wii but Wii-Fit that is intended to generate fitness benefits.

The widely reported story, here from the BBC, shows kids burning an extra 60 calories over playing the Xbox 360. That is about on a par with what we have found for an 170 lb adult. (Fitness experts know calories burnt depends on weight)

If you need more convincing, check out the VideoJug film that compares Wii, EyeToy, DDR and Gamercize. We do love the Wii, but for those seeking to use technology for fitness, there are better options. If you like dance games, Konami's DDR is a great choice and Eyetoy is also fun, but if you want to play all your games then the best choice is the only choice - Gamercize.

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Exercise for Free

Play Outside or Go Running to Keep Fit

All kids should play outdoors and all adults should going running for five mile runs at lunchtimes to keep fit for free. I've heard this a few times in discussions within the context of fitness technology such as Gamercize.

Obesity has been rising steadily over the last twenty years across the world. All that time kids just needed to play outside and adults needed to go jogging to prevent the rise? There lies the fundamental flaw; twenty years of world wide experience shows that while the option is available, outdoor exercise is not working. Trying to force people outside is wrong, blaming parents is short-sighted and ignoring the changes and pressures of 21st century lifestyles is plain ignorant.

Outdoor exercise does work just fine for keeping kids and adults fit and healthy, but for many individuals there is not enough time, security, motivation or the experience is just downright unpleasant. Entertainment is now easily accessible through sedentary technology, video games consoles, computers and the Internet, all without the need to head outside and be active. Add fitness to this entertainment and you have the principles behind Gamercize; the 21st century way towards reclaiming the enjoyment of being active.

Those that still maintain everyone, regardless of personal circumstances, should be forced outside to exercise can happily have that opinion. As soon as the time machine is invented to take them back to the 1950s their opinion will once again be valid. I think I'll just stick with accepting the progress in technology, and take to the great outdoors when it suits me and when the weather good.

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